@Zippy: All some of us are saying is that saying you "can't possibly predict" one thing a year out but claiming to have the inside track on several other economic indicators doesn't make any sense. If Jordan can predict, with a good amount of certainty, prices of stocks and how the housing market will be, he should run, not walk, to invest in those areas. He could be making quite a bit of money with his information, but here he is, posting on RPF instead of going out there and making use of his information. There is a disconnect there.

@Zippy: All some of us are saying is that saying you "can't possibly predict" one thing a year out but claiming to have the inside track on several other economic indicators doesn't make any sense. If Jordan can predict, with a good amount of certainty, prices of stocks and how the housing market will be, he should run, not walk, to invest in those areas. He could be making quite a bit of money with his information, but here he is, posting on RPF instead of going out there and making use of his information. There is a disconnect there.

Jordan does a fair bit of trading and his performance over the past few years has definitely exceeded the market by a considerable sum.

I'm not quite sure how someone's involvement on the forum precludes them from successfully investing. There's more than a few finance professionals in top tier firms who post on RPF.

I almost get the impression that there are some who think that the only way things can really move is down (unless it is gold or silver)- that anything up is a mistake or a blip or manipulation. I prefer to be more optomistic and look at the down points as temporary setbacks. Things have always moved both up and down.

Looks like it may rise a bit this month as companies and people put off things waiting to see what happens with the "fiscal cliff" (which I am more and more believing is being over-sold like most potential crisies are). I expect them to more normalize by February (January may still have uncertainty).

Looks like it may rise a bit this month as companies and people put off things waiting to see what happens with the "fiscal cliff" (which I am more and more believing is being over-sold like most potential crisies are). I expect them to more normalize by February (January may still have uncertainty).

Hate to tell you guys, but February is the Debt Ceiling Disaster...Part Two.

I am wondering if they are also looking at that and may try to get a further increase in the debt limit as a part of any "fiscal cliff" deal- since it was the last debt limit deal which led to the "cliff" thing in the first place. As a random figure, I might pick say $18 trillion for their target (definately NOT saying I want out debt to go that high!)? Doubt they would punch it to $20 trillion.

Amazing to consider that when GW Bush took office it was less than $5 trillion and 67% of GDP- now over 100%. Amazing what some tax cuts and a couple wars can do for you. Toss in a couple recessions. Boom!

Even though your predictions are probably ridiculous, I must come to your defense on these points.

Guys, we're all supposed to be on the same side, and that side is supposed to be that of LIBERTY. Let the boy make his predictions and let you agree or disagree as you might, but let me add that civility should be one of our benchmarks of behavior. I will say nothing more about this.

OTOH, Jordan, you perhaps need to grow a little thicker hide. Neither of the statements you cited were "insults". Poking some sarcastic criticism in the direction of predictions that you made with nothing in the way of reasoning to back them up does not constitute insult. You opened yourself up to it, so man up and take the pain, if "pain" can even be said to apply in even the least measure.

We should not be at one another's throats. There are plenty of vicious adversaries "out there". What say we keep our focus.

Thanks. It's not about criticism. It's about the fact that the only thing JFK and cbc have nothing to add other than criticism, and are happy to downplay my contributions without having any of their own. One thing to criticize and suggest your own altnerative; it's another to just criticize and cower in fear of being wrong.

Originally Posted by TCE

I was perfectly okay and could see your point of view on everything until you said this. You should have kept that one to yourself. Are you saying you're an insider who has all of the relevant information to predict the unemployment rate, new car sales, new house sales, and stocks as a whole but gold is something you "can't possibly predict?" Uh...color me skeptical.

No, what I'm saying is that I have much more confidence in my ability to predict what I posted in the original post than my ability to forecast what a market of buyers will be willing to pay for a single commodity that is mostly irrelevant to the economy at large on a single day one year in the future. BTW, where is your forecast?

Originally Posted by jclay2

And he needs to stop trolling. How many threads has he started in the last two weeks?

Just because I disagree with you doesn't make me a troll. Where is your forecast?

Originally Posted by bxm042

I also predict that if/when hyperinflation does happen, both the white house and Jordan will be telling us it's not happening

I've been 100% intellectually honest in everything I post here. The signs point to economic strength, an improving housing market, and a falling unemployment rate. If hyperinflation begins, I don't know why I'd lie about it. Where are your predictions?

Originally Posted by LibertyIn08

Jordan does a fair bit of trading and his performance over the past few years has definitely exceeded the market by a considerable sum.

I'm not quite sure how someone's involvement on the forum precludes them from successfully investing. There's more than a few finance professionals in top tier firms who post on RPF.

Thanks - and yeah, RPF is actually home to quite a few financial professionals. Way more than you get from most forums non-finance related.

Looks like it may rise a bit this month as companies and people put off things waiting to see what happens with the "fiscal cliff" (which I am more and more believing is being over-sold like most potential crisies are). I expect them to more normalize by February (January may still have uncertainty).

I have no idea , but using just facts,logic & math, I would expect things to really start to turn South there . Unemployment numbers should be bad, , no more Hol Temp jobs, high heating bills, layoffs from tax increases ,lack of hiring,taxes in health care mnfg,tax increases on payroll , lower spending, increase in price of food starting to show , corn to remain $7.25 - $8 ( drought last yr. ), Hol gift cards and cash used up, short month ,loss of real , high earner jobs.....

I am wondering if they are also looking at that and may try to get a further increase in the debt limit as a part of any "fiscal cliff" deal- since it was the last debt limit deal which led to the "cliff" thing in the first place. As a random figure, I might pick say $18 trillion for their target (definately NOT saying I want out debt to go that high!)? Doubt they would punch it to $20 trillion.

Amazing to consider that when GW Bush took office it was less than $5 trillion and 67% of GDP- now over 100%. Amazing what some tax cuts and a couple wars can do for you. Toss in a couple recessions. Boom!

I think it is more amazing what a Dirty Harry Senate can do, and he is just getting started , debt should be over 22 trillion easy , 2016.

WAGing it but, the frog in the pot keeps inching up. A small series of expansions and contractions continues to leave the picture cloudy, some low grade inflationary pressure, some increase in unemployment YoY, people will still be saying 'were just fine' while consumers are feeling harder and harder pinched. Stock market still boosting on QE3 will continue higher, inflating the bubble. Government regulations will force people to spend money they otherwise wouldn't, improving construction and auto sectors via distortion, and we will basically be sitting in the same place we are now, just under a lot more pressure one year from today.

Except as to the rule of apportionment, the United States have an indefinite discretion to make requisitions for men and money; but they have no authority to raise either by regulations extending to the individual citizens of America.

Technology-dependent money is very risky stuff. May look great on paper, but when things go sour and that technology becomes unavailable even for relatively short periods, people vested in such money stand to find themselves in some warm and possibly very deep water.

The technologies that support bit coins will go <poof> well before conditions favoring gold and silver fail, so consider the order of your dominoes before committing.

Just a friendly reality check.

My friend knows a ton about Bitcoins and has some crazy plans. I know virtually nothing. Currently I absolutely would advocate BUYING PHYSICAL SILVER AND TAKING DELIVERY as #1 priority. Particularly silver dimes. There's this site that sells 1,000 at a time.

My friend's reply:

Regardless of access to technology the idea of crypto currency is sound because we have the framework to sustain it. We can rebuild the internet if needed. Bitcoin only dies if the people let it die. Hackers and plenty of schematics will ensure that.

Last edited by John F Kennedy III; 12-12-2012 at 08:38 PM.

Originally Posted by Origanalist

There would be riots in the streets, if boobus gave one shit about his honor.

I almost get the impression that there are some who think that the only way things can really move is down (unless it is gold or silver)- that anything up is a mistake or a blip or manipulation. I prefer to be more optomistic and look at the down points as temporary setbacks. Things have always moved both up and down.

In the longer term that is exactly what I think. Why, you ask? Let us get back to the basics. We have an economy based on debt-currency, rather than money. This by necessity results in the "business cycle" - it cannot be avoided by any means because boom and bust are part and parcel of the architecture and are in fact the foundational elements of it. Given this, any "improvements" in the employment figures are likewise necessarily temporary. So long as the cycle of weal and woe remains as an inherent and predictably unavoidable component of the economy, the only place we as a nation can go is ever downward. The ONLY factor that is nominally within human control is the rate of burn. As we are now witness, the Fed is printing money the way geese print feces - in torrents. As that continues, the burn rate has risen in readily observable fashion with the rise in the currency supply.

Imagine launching the Titanic with a 1" hole in the hull. Water flows in, but perhaps at a momentarily manageable rate. The Fed printing more "money" is analogous to the ship-side engineers drilling more and larger holes in the hull. At some point the rate of water in overtakes the rate pumped out, the ship becomes heavier in the water, sits lower and lower, and eventually sinks. The point here is that if holes are part and parcel of the hull, the ship cannot remain afloat indefinitely and is doomed to inevitable sinking. Our system of currency constitutes the league of sappers that are boring holes in the hull of the economy. There is NOWHERE for this to go but to the bottom unless we kill the miners and start plugging the holes.

Regardless of access to technology the idea of crypto currency is sound because we have the framework to sustain it. We can rebuild the internet if needed. Bitcoin only dies if the people let it die. Hackers and plenty of schematics will ensure that.

This is questionable at best. If we find ourselves in a real and very physical conflict with TPTB and they decide there shall be no internet, what does your friend think is going to happen when the edge switches are forcibly quiesced and RF is banned? Without RF there is no Wifi and the technology to disable it nationally is well within reach and almost certainly is now in place. Without edge-switch or RF access, there is no access to the backbone. The advantage rests with the men with the guns. Until the government mob is neutralized in a given area, there is no "rebuild[ing] the internet". The point here is that if "government" says there is no internet, there is none until such time as government is effectively removed. That will necessitate, at the very least, a credible and perpetual threat of physical force sufficient to the task. I do not see this as likely any time soon, though I am not so foolhardy to believe that this could not change in an instant.

The bottom line in this discussion is that complication is NOT your friend when conditions become sufficiently threatening. Under such circumstances simplicity becomes high virtue. High tech, humanly impossible-to-reproduce-and-manage forms of money stand a good chance of becoming irrelevant literally over night when conditions reduce life to issues of immediate survival, regardless of duration. Anyone vesting their futures in such technology-dependent forms of money are assuming a huge risk. The belief that technology always wins the day is dangerously misguided and becomes increasingly so as the complexity of the technology in question increases.

My friend knows a ton about Bitcoins and has some crazy plans. I know virtually nothing. Currently I absolutely would advocate BUYING PHYSICAL SILVER AND TAKING DELIVERY as #1 priority. Particularly silver dimes. There's this site that sells 1,000 at a time.

My friend's reply:

Regardless of access to technology the idea of crypto currency is sound because we have the framework to sustain it. We can rebuild the internet if needed. Bitcoin only dies if the people let it die. Hackers and plenty of schematics will ensure that.

I usually try and keep 17 ounces , at least in silver dimes around various places, I still buy a few here and there , I collect some, I use some.If I am at a buddies , buying something for the farm, he asks $11 or 12 or 13, all I have is $9 or10 in my pocket , I use that and a silver dime, call it even. I accept them for things I sell .